Entr'acte
by caynaise
Summary: [Miracle Queen spoilers] With the burden of responsibility weighing more heavily on Ladybug than ever, Chat Noir is determined to stay at her side—all the while wondering just how he, and his bundle of faults and messy feelings, fits into the puzzle.


After things had settled down, he couldn't turn off the what-ifs spinning on a film reel in his head. What if Ladybug had fallen further than his trite words could reach? If Snake Noir had met the same fate as Aspik? If Master Fu hadn't intervened and Hawk Moth had won? If . . .

What if they'd been alone, with no duty knocking at the door and all the time in the world?

Might he have done something differently, in a universe without the weight of a city and its people on their shoulders, and no secrets that kept the girl he had to stop loving at a distance he could never cross?

Yet they wouldn't be Ladybug and Chat Noir without the urgency of battle, the necessity for complete, unerring trust, the flippant banter that tentatively masked the uncertainty of two children who were somehow supposed to know what to do every time they needed to save the people from certain doom.

There was no what-if. There had only been what was, and no time, and one choice to make.

He couldn't come close to imagining being in her shoes. She'd crumbled in a way he had forgotten she could, and all he did was remind her that she had to pull herself together and save the world again. When her sharp mind failed her in the most crucial moment, he stood there and told her to focus.

Even when all he wanted to do was throw his arms around her and never let go.

When it was over, they parted ways to detransform, and he wanted to hide from her, and himself, in shame.

Gearing up with a mental pep talk and a mad dash up his rock-climbing wall, he came back for her.

They could see the Eiffel Tower still lit in gold from the deserted roof of Montparnasse Tower. She'd wanted to come here of all places, where the city was an ocean of lights below them . . . maybe because here was where they'd once shared something precious, that neither of them could remember. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

He watched her lean against the railing, her back to him, scarlet ribbons quivering in the wind.

"Chat," she said abruptly.

"Yeah?"

"Miracle Queen's costume was _lame._"

He blinked, then grinned, joining her. "Superhero, genius, fashion critic—you never fail to surprise me. I was more occupied with, y'know, getting teleported into the sun and whatnot, but hey, I guess you're right."

"Getting _what?" _Ladybug let out an involuntary snort, and looked at him with wide, horrified eyes. "Sorry, that's not funny, that's not funny at all. I don't know why I—"

"Hey, relax, it's hilarious. To think this cat would've been _hiss-_tory without his snakey power-up . . . I'd never have believed anyone could be so _cold-blooded_—"

"_Chat!"_

The look on her face silenced him. "Right. Not funny. I know." He sighed, rolled his shoulders forward and back. "I didn't come here to be a pain, I swear."

Ladybug smiled sadly. "We're a mess, aren't we?"

He shook the image of her vanishing into mist some twenty five thousand times from his head because even with the bangle locked tight around his wrist like a shackle and dread squeezing him breathless, Second Chance had decidedly not failed him this time—why should he care about the last? "Hey, we kicked butt like always. Monkey butt, horse butt, snake butt—"

"I don't think snakes have butts."

"A matter of semantics." He waved a hand dismissively. "C'mere."

They sat down, side by side, wind humming in their ears, and he slipped his arm around her. She leaned into him, a tired shadow of her usual self, and he marvelled at how much she still valued his presence after all the times he'd been nothing but selfish and petty and troublesome.

Then again, she had no one else in the hero business to turn to. He had to be better than that.

"What am I gonna do?" Ladybug whispered, face half-turned into his chest, and his heart twinged.

It should've been easy to answer her, to say she would do what she always had, except now she was even more powerful than before, and that he believed in her. But he found he didn't want to address any of that, not now, in this moment of respite.

"You're gonna keep trying your best," he said instead. "Look, I—" he raked his free hand through his hair without thinking, felt a claw graze his scalp. "I don't know what to tell you, I didn't know today and I won't ever know—"

"You do know, _chaton." _Her gaze was soft, grateful. "That was perfect, just now."

"But if there's nothing else I can do—"

"There's lots of things you can't do."

That gave him whiplash, left him open-mouthed in bewilderment.

"As Chat Noir, I mean. The same goes for all of us. But you saved my ass freeing the akuma earlier, you know that? _Without _having to throw yourself in harm's way for me. I'm not the only one with ideas. Maybe you should trust your own a little more."

Bit of a tall order, for someone who either bent over backwards for authority at the snap of a finger or flipped into blind bravado to compensate. "I'll admit, I thought trusting you was enough."

From the way she was eyeing him, he got the impression she would make a stellar headmistress in her civilian life. "I know you don't like being wrong. No one does. I guess I'm not really one to talk anyway, after what happened."

Chat felt that, keenly, and the discomfort wedged itself deep. His Lady was strong, stronger than he could ever be, strong enough to break and put herself back together, take responsibility for her actions . . . while he swept his screw-ups under the rug like a child hiding a broken plate. His Lady, wise, obstinate, fragile like anyone else . . . if he wasn't careful he'd throw aside his already flimsy restraint and fall in love all over again, twofold in strength.

"Ladybug . . ." he started, but she didn't seem to hear him.

"Do you ever just . . . want to run away? From all of this?"

Oh, the irony. It sharpened his smile, gave it a bitter edge. "I _am _running away."

The top of her mask arched upwards.

"Every time I put this on." He tapped his own mask lightly, releasing a chuckle.

She didn't blink for so long that he began to think she'd silently swapped places with her statue in the Musée Grévin. Then, slowly, she pulled away, slapped hard at her cheeks with her eyes screwed shut. "All right. I'm doing this. I'm doing this!" she yelled into the sky, punctuating each word with an air punch, several of which sailed dangerously close to his head.

"Right! That's the Ladybug I know."

Except it wasn't, at least not quite as he was used to, with the childlike way she was psyching herself up, and it caught him off guard. Her energy was infectious—he tried not to think about what else it was, or how his heart bucked in his chest when she grabbed his hand and yanked it up in imagined celebration.

"_We're _doing this," she corrected herself in a milder tone, releasing him.

"At your service, as always."

"Not to the point of forgetting yourself, I'd prefer that."

His eyes darted away.

"Look at me, Chat."

He couldn't not. Her gaze held him in place, teary and focused and blue as a hot, hot flame.

"When you run away again, you'll come back here, right? Promise?"

He nodded, solemnly. "Promise."

"We'll win," she cried viciously, "we'll slug Hawk Moth in the face, and whatever you're running from, I'll—I'll beat it to the ground—"

"Yeah," he tried to interject, and had to repeat himself before she heard him. "Yeah, sounds good, but before any of that, you'll go home and sleep. Promise me that, okay?"

She breathed out, blue vanishing under red for a moment. "Okay. I will."

"A full eight hours. No cutting corners."

"Sage advice," she said, mask contracting around narrowed eyes, "but something tells me you're the sort of person who stays up until four in the morning."

Busted. He should've known better. "Well! We all have those occasions! That just means you can call on me whenever. Just uh, in case you can't sleep?"

Her eyes might as well have been flashing _Filthy hypocrite _in neon letters, but still she smiled and said, "I'll keep that in mind."

Their goodnights hung in the air unspoken, but neither of them moved. Chat reached for her again, only to find her reaching for him too, and he caught and held her and rocked her back and forth like he'd wanted to in the Seine with swarms of angry bees lying in wait above them.

"Your best will always be enough for me," he murmured, and they both knew it meant nothing, but nothing was good enough for now.

* * *

When she told him a few days later that she was fine, but she did know a young lady who was having trouble sleeping and would appreciate some company, not a trace of suspicion entered his mind.

"Yeah? And who might she be?"

Ladybug smiled. "Remember Marinette?"


End file.
